GRAPHIC IMAGES: The bungalow which thirty cats and a ferret were rescued from

Thirty cats and a ferret have been rescued from a bungalow which was waist-high in animal faeces.

The owner of the animals Martin Jones, 58, of Yew Tree Drive in Shirebrook, appeared at Chesterfield Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday (August 9) to be sentenced for an offence of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.

Magistrates handed him a lifetime disqualification order on keeping animals, an 18 week prison sentence suspended for 12 months and has been ordered to pay £400 in costs and a £115 victim surcharge.

He pleaded guilty to the offence at a hearing on Thursday (August 3).

The court heard an RSPCA inspector visited the property in Hillsway, Shirebrook, near Mansfield, in March after a member of the public contacted the charity with concerns.

RSPCA inspector Deborah Scotcher said: “Initially I looked through the window and saw what looked like an extremely messy room cluttered with furniture and general rubbish.

“But once we got inside, I realised what I saw through the window was not the full story.

“There were 30 cats and a ferret living in this bungalow and they were all feral, just left to fend for themselves.”

The animals were removed from the house over the following three weeks and cat traps were set and checked daily.

Each cat was examined by a vet who had attended the property and viewed the conditions first hand.

Some of the cats were put to sleep on veterinary advice as they were suffering from feline AIDS and a variety of other health problems.

Inspector Scotcher said: “The conditions in the house were horrific – there was so much animal faeces which in some parts of the bungalow were waist-high and completely embedded in surfaces.

“There was literally nowhere else for the animals to relieve themselves and they had resorted to defecating on the tops of wardrobes and kitchen surfaces.

“The property was dark, damp and not fit for humans or animals to live in – it felt unreal.”

The court heard the house had belonged to Jones’s late mother and that initially Jones had put two cats in the house but over time they had interbred.

Inspector Scotcher said: “Jones was visiting the house and throwing food down, but he had no way of knowing whether all the animals were eating properly.

“Some of the cats were so feral that the only way we could handle them was with thick gauntlet gloves.”

Many could not to be handled and had had no human interaction or contact for the whole of their lives.